Southside boys rally past Westbrook Christian 48-43

Thursday

SOUTHSIDE — Westbrook Christian led majority of the game, but Southside ended up with the 48-43 win Thursday night in boys high school basketball.

The Panthers trailed the Warriors 41-35 through three quarters after Andrew Lockridge hit a floater in the paint just before the buzzer.

After that, Westbrook scored only once more, and it came after Southside took the lead.

Blake Habyan started the fourth quarter with a dunk in transition following a steal to get Southside’s 9-0 run rolling. The Panthers took their first lead with 4:29 remaining after Jordan Grantland made one of two free throws to make the score 42-41. The run was capped off on a Habyan layup to extend Southside’s lead to three points.

Jackson Luttrell cut Westbrook’s lead to 44-43 on a layup at the 2:01 mark, but the Warriors couldn’t get a shot to go in afterwards.

Westbrook had a chance to take the lead with 21 seconds left, but Jonah Morris’ three was off the mark.

Brock Habyan and Colton Morrison each sunk two free throws down the stretch to secure the Panther victory.

The game was tied at 16 after the opening quarter and Westbrook was up 30-23 at the half.

They Said It

“We go over transition defense every practice for an hour so we are going to be good at that. Coaches are on us all the time about that.” — Brock Habyan

“Just to be together, dig in deep and play on defense hard. I think we came along as a unit and built some more trust. We are building a team for the long run.” — Blake Habyan

Coachspeak

“We had a tough night earlier in the week. We took one on the chin at Fort Payne (on Tuesday). We lost by 36 points (86-50). And we weren’t real pleased with how we defended. This is a program that’s built on defense first and we weren’t playing Southside basketball. So we had a good, long come together meeting yesterday at practice and I felt like everyone was bought in and more committed to play with some purpose on the defensive end of the floor.” — Southside coach Chad Holderfield

“They stepped up their intensity on defense and we would not adjust. They were overplaying going backdoor and they just got a lot of deflections and a lot of steals. We just turned the ball over way too much in the fourth quarter. That’s what the difference was.” — Westbrook coach Matt Dickey